ECTD_091
TITLE:
World beekeeping.
SOURCE:
Bee World 56 (1): 9 - 16
DATE:
1975
Bee World 56(1) : 9-16 (1975)
WORLD BEEKEEPING
by EVA CRANE
Bee Research Association, Hill House, Chalfont St. Peter, Gerrards Cross,
Bucks., SL9 ONR, UK
This article is a slightly abbreviated short extract from Chapter 4, World honey
production, of a forthcoming book*. Here, a single summary table sets out
the position continent by continent; the Chapter has six further tables, giving
figures for the separate countries of each continent, and assesses their validity.
It also includes references to sources of data which are omitted here, and much
other information.
Europe and USSR
Each European country, and each area within it, has its own characteristic honey
flora and beekeeping conditions—hot or cool in summer, cold or mild in winter,
wet or dry, high or low in altitude, sheltered or windy, open land or urban development. The honey yield, its sources, and the capabilities of the local bees, all vary
from place to place. The honey yields quoted in Table 1 are averages of results
depending on the intimate relationships between bees and the plants within their flight
range, throughout the area in question.
The most notable general feature of Europe from the point of view of honey production is the high population density of colonies of bees {CIA). The average is
2-8 per sq km, 7 times as high as in Africa or USSR—the runners up—and 50 times as
high as in Australia. This is partly linked with a high human population density,
but not entirely. Many countries in Asia that are as densely populated have far fewer
hives of bees; three equivalent pairs will serve as examples: Belgium has 10 times the
hive density of Taiwan; Switzerland 400 times that of India; Czechoslovakia 900 times
that of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Czechoslovakia, Greece, and Switzerland have the
highest hive densities {CIA) in the world.
The root cause of the high concentration of bees in Europe would seem to be the
long tradition of beekeeping there. It is certainly not high honey yields, for the
average European yield per hive is only a third or a quarter as much as in the New World
continents.
Of the individual countries of Europe, the German Federal Republic and France are
the largest honey producers {H), Spain and Poland coming next. These four large
countries all produce over 10 000 tons a year. Each of them has around a million
colonies of bees or more (C), as do Czechoslovakia, Greece and Rumania.
Sweden, with a very low population density of humans and of bees, comes out as
having the highest honey yield per colony {H/C), probably because of the long summer
days and intense short growing season.
In many countries of Europe, the urge to keep bees does not necessarily depend on
getting financial profit from them. Central Europe is probably the greatest traditional
stronghold of beekeeping in the world, and in parts of this region hives are kept packed
* "Honey: a comprehensive survey" edited by Eva Crane, published by William Heinemann
Ltd in collaboration with Bee Research Association, 608 pages with 65 plates, price £15.
Orders can be sent to BRA for dispatch on publication.
TABLE 1. Honey production: world summary
For each continent:
2
A — area in 1000 km
H = average annual honey harvest in metric tons (tonnes)
B = number of beekeepers in 1000s
HjP = average annual honey consumption per person in 100 mg
C = number of colonies of bees in 1000s
S/P = average annual sugar consumption per person in kg
Entries relating to the Old World are in roman type and those relating to the New World are in italics.
Continent
2
A
{1000 km*)
3
B
{1000s)
4
C
{1000s)
5
H
{tons)
6
H/C
(kg)
Europe*
USSR
4 682
22 400
1 367
1 150
12 983
10 000
120 680
103 000
9
11
N. America
S. & C. America
Oceania
19 636
20 785
7 956
435
235
12
4 754
4 000
684
125 200
102 000
23 850
26
25
35
14
17
56
Asia*
Africa
27 896
32 315
900
2 526
6 000
12 000
73 000
82 700
12
6
TOTAL
135 670
6 625
50 421
630 430
Old World
% of total
87 293
64%
5 943
90%
40 983
81%
New World
% of total
48 377
36%
682
10%
9 438
19%
1
New World/Old World
7
C/B
8
C/A
{/km2)
9
HjP
{100 g)
10
SIP
{kg)
11
H)B
(kg)
2-8
0-4
4
5
36
45
90
90
0-24
0-19
0-09
7
1
5
49
42
57
300
50
2 000
1
6
0-2
0-4
004
2-6
1
11
70
30
12-5
8
0-4
1-7
20
95
379 380
60%
9
7
0-5
1-3
15
64
251 050
40%
27
14
0-2
3-8
46
370
X 2
x 2
x 0-4
X 3
x 3
excluding USSR
9-5
8
X 6
3
together in a bee house, and the average beekeeper's holding (C/B) is more than where
hives are free-standing in the open, as elsewhere in the world. The bee-house tradition
is more or less confined to areas where German is the primary or secondary language
(Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia in
Yugoslavia).
Widespread sources of honey in Europe are clover and rape, with heather also on the
Atlantic seaboard. In Central Europe the acacia or locust {Robinia pseudoacacid)
is perhaps the most notable. A native of North America, it thrives on sandy soil
and has been planted in large areas of Hungary, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, where it
provides the main export honey. Various species of lime (Tilia) are important also in
Rumania and Poland. Honeydew from coniferous forests is predominant in many
parts of Austria and Germany. Orange honey is notable in Spain, rosemary there
and also in France, where lavender is another specialty honey. Greek thyme honey
is famous.
The USSR is such a large country that it is treated as a separate "continent" in
comparative statements, and in Table 1, instead of being combined with the rest of
Europe and Asia. The whole USSR is five times the size of the rest of Europe.
The best honey-producing regions are in the large Asiatic section. The total number
of colonies is rather less than in the rest of Europe, and these are much more sparsely
scattered, at an average of only 0-4 per sq km; this is about the same as in the United
States. The total honey production is also about the same as in the States—but there
the honey is produced from less than half as many hives. Honey sources over this
vast Union of Republics are many and varied; limes, sunflower, buckwheat, willowherb (fireweed), raspberry, and cotton are among the most important.
North America
North America is a continent where modern frame-hive beekeeping is even more
universal than in Europe. The two countries concerned (Canada and USA) are
about the same size, but the latter has 10 times as many colonies, 10 times the colony
density (and 10 times the human population); it has 40 times as many beekeepers,
but they tend to have fewer hives each than in Canada. Canada's high honey productivity (57 kg per colony) is a notable example of the honey yields obtainable at high
latitudes, which are here harvested with package bees raised much further south.
Honey consumption is higher in Europe or the USSR, partly because honey can be
produced more cheaply; the sugar consumption is also higher, but not by such a large
factor.
Canada is a country of commercial honey production, for home consumption and
export; the average holding of 41 hives per beekeeper covers a range from several
thousand down to less than 10 among the hobbyists. The USA also has large holdings,
up to 10 000 or more; but in the east especially there is also a considerable amount of
hobby beekeeping, and this brings the national average down.
Honeys from white clover, sweet clover, and a mixture of these with alfalfa, are
widely produced in Canada and some northern parts of the USA; these honeys are
usually described as "clover". Basswood {Tilia) is also common to both countries.
British Columbia produces more aromatic honeys. Further south in the United
States, cotton, and citrus (usually marketed as orange) are important, and in California
Erigonum fasciculatum (wild buckwheat, Californian sage). There is a host of other
sources.
4
Central and South America
We now leave the comparatively well documented regions of the world, returning to
them in only one other (the next) Section. But future expansion of honey production
is likely to be greatest in the less developed, less well documented regions, which are
thus in need of special attention.
Central America is dominated by Mexico, whose growth as a honey-producing
country has been dramatic. In several other countries the honey yield per hive is also
higher than in the United States. In spite of this high honey productivity, the honey
consumption is very much smaller than in Europe or North America.
Central and South America between them produce about as much honey as the
USSR or the USA. But, unlike the two last countries, those of Latin America export
most of what they produce, and in so doing they dominate the world honey trade.
The average holding is 12^ colonies per beekeeper, about the same as in the United
States, and the yield per colony rather higher—but without all the expertise that has
been applied to North American beekeeping.
Argentina is the greatest honey producer in South America, with Brazil and Chile
a long way behind. Colonies are more thinly spread than in the USA, and very much
more so than in Europe. Sugar consumption is around half that in continents
considered previously; Cuba, with sugar as its main crop, is an exception—it tops
the world for sugar consumption. Throughout Latin America honey consumption is
low; honey is a source of income rather than something to eat at home.
White clover and lucerne (alfalfa) are among the main honey sources now exploited
in temperate South America, as well as the thistle-like cardoon, Cynara cardunculus.
In tropical regions the sources are much less known, and indeed it is here (for instance
in the Amazon basin) that the honey resources are barely exploited at all, let alone
known and evaluated. In various parts of Central America the following are especially important: dzidzilche, tah, campeche, Jamaica dogwood, campanilla, royal
palms. Their botanical names are Gymnopodium antigonoides, Viguiera helanthoides,
Haematoxylon campechianum, Piscidia piscipula, Ipomoea spp. and Rivea corymbosa,
Roy stoma spp.
Oceania
This region includes Australia and New Zealand, and a host of islands to the south
and east of Asia proper which, however, contribute only 7% to the total area and are
unimportant in the present context. Oceania is nearly twice as large as Europe,
but less than half the size of any other continental unit.
New Zealand honey production is not unlike that in other productive temperate
regions. The native flora yields some most interesting honeys, and a few that have
objectionable properties. But the bulk of the honey comes from white clover; it is
eaten at home, and exported.
Australia has several unusual or unique features from the beekeeping point of
view. The large proportion of the country that is desert gives it the lowest overall
hive density of any land mass in the world. Yet it is a country of large holdings and
high honey yields. The average number of hives per beekeeper (83) would be higher
still if it were not for the immigrants from Europe since the last war, who brought with
them their tradition of hobby beekeeping, with ten hives or less.
The bulk of Australian honey comes from indigenous species of eucalypt. Many
of these produce nectar copiously, but some have other less convenient characteristics
5
from the beekeeper's point of view. Some yield no pollen, and most of them flower
only at biennial or less frequent intervals. Stands of different trees may provide rich
honey flows in succession, which a beekeeper can harvest by moving his hives from one
flow to the next. Very large annual crops can thus be obtained—up to say 300 kg
per hive—but a low price for honey may set a limit to the amount it is worth paying
out in transport costs. The classic migration story relates how two beekeepers
once moved 1600 hives nearly 4000 km, by train, from New South Wales to Western
Australia to work the karri {Eucalyptus diversicolor). The trees bloomed from
December 1948 until July 1949; during this time some 15 000 hives were in the karri
forest, and there were recorded instances of 25 kg of honey being harvested from the
same hive every 14 days. But after one flowering it may be 4, 8 or 12 years before the
karri forest flowers again.
Asia
Here, again, is a completely different region: another Old World continent, with
indigenous honeybees—but four separate species, three of which occur nowhere else.
The fourth {Apis mellifera) has been introduced into many areas from Europe, and it is
also native to parts of Asia around the Black and Caspian Seas.
Statistics are hard to come by, and a number of those used are very imprecise.
Apart from notable exceptions such as Israel, Japan, and Taiwan, and possibly parts
of the Chinese People's Republic, honey productivity is low in Asia. Reasons for this
include the wide use of fixed-comb hives and the accompanying lack of control over
the bees; lack of knowledge and of mechanization which would allow migratory
beekeeping; the generally low productivity of Apis cerana; the difficulties of harvesting
honey from the other two species, dorsata and florea, which build a single comb in the
open and cannot be kept in normal hives; finally, the many enemies of bees in tropical
regions. In our present circuit of the world, Asia is the first continent discussed which
has tropical regions with honeybees that evolved there—and with enemies of honeybees
that evolved there too. Africa is the only other such continent.
The People's Republic of China, three times as large as India and twice the size of
Europe, is coming more and more to dominate honey production in Asia—as Mexico
and Argentina dominate the situation in Central and South America respectively.
But the development in China is more recent, and is probably still gathering momentum;
no full assessment of the conditions is available, and so the future is very difficult to
predict—except that further expansion is likely. The present national average yield
per hive (11 kg) is depressed by the many fixed-comb hives still remaining, and the
present estimated total production is not much more than twice that of Japan, a
country only 4 % as large. Israel and Taiwan are two tiny countries which show
something of the honey-producing potential of parts of Asia.
In general, sugar is a much less important food in Asia than in any other continent,
and the same is true of honey. Habits are changing, however. In the next ten years
the honey situation in Asia is likely to change markedly, and figures may perhaps be
available to give a more complete and reliable picture of the position then.
With Asiatic USSR, the continent stretches from the Arctic to the Equator and
beyond. Even without the northern Soviet area, the plants from which honey is
harvested are legion, and in many areas have still not been documented. The exported
honey from China includes much from limes {Tilid) and litchi {Litchi chinensis); in
Israel citrus is the main source.
6
Africa
The final continent to be considered includes the largest tropical land area on earth.
It is an Old World region where the most widespread indigenous honeybee is the subspecies adansonii of the European bee Apis mellifera. No honeybee except Apis
mellifera lives there, but there are several sub-groups. In much of Africa there is a
strong beekeeping tradition, as in Europe. But the marketed product in tropical
Africa has not been honey but beeswax, which is easier to transport where there is no
roads. Most of the honey is used for fermentation, in the production of honey beer.
North of the Sahara, beekeeping is not dissimilar from that in other Mediterranean
countries. At the southern extremity of Africa normal modern beekeeping is practised, except that one local subspecies {A. m. capensis) has some unusual characteristics.
In countries between the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, A. m. adansonii thrives. It
is prolific, building sizable colonies which swarm freely; the swarms occupy any
available cavity of a suitable size. Beekeeping is based on setting up empty bait hives
into which swarms move; this is true even in modern commercial systems. Combs are
built quickly, temperatures being high enough to encourage wax production by the
bees. A "traditional" beekeeper might have up to several hundred hives, hung in
trees as a protection against their many enemies, half the hives being empty, awaiting
the next occupants. At the right season most or all of the combs are cut out, using
smoke and working at night. There is a crude extraction of honey by straining and
pressing, and the wax is melted and made into blocks for transport to a marketing
point. The honey is likely to be sold to the local beer maker, or used domestically
for the same purpose.
Data for these countries are extremely vague: few statistics have been collected,
and many Africans dislike counting things, considering it unlucky to do so. In the
wax-producing countries the most reliable figures are those for beeswax exports.
From these the total amount of beeswax produced has been estimated, and the number
of occupied hives is calculated on the basis of one for every \ kg of beeswax produced.
The honey production is estimated at 6 kg per hive, i.e. a ratio of 12 to 1 for honey and
beeswax yields. The average holding is taken as 4 occupied hives per beekeeper;
individual ownership may vary from 1 to 1000, and half the hives are likely to be
empty. Honey consumption is calculated on the assumption that all available is
collected, and that none is exported. This basis was suggested by Dr. F. G. Smith
in the late 1950s; in view of the changes taking place in tropical Africa, adjustments
might well be necessary for any future calculations.
Accepting the limitations of the figures used, which are not contradicted by such
independent checks as can be made, the following facts can be deduced. The important honey-producing countries in tropical Africa are Tanzania, Malagasy Republic,
Angola, and Ethiopia. North of the Sahara, Morocco and Egypt produce most
honey. The average honey "consumption" per capita is much higher than in any
other group of countries except the highly developed ones, but as some 80 % of the
honey in tropical Africa is used for brewing, comparatively little is eaten as such.
The beer is normally drunk by men only, so their consumption of honey will be 2-3
times that quoted in Column 9.
There are, and have been, many beekeeping development programmes in Africa,
some of which are successful in a number of ways. Most aim to increase the output
of marketable honey by improving methods of collection and processing, as well as by
getting bee management on a more rational basis—though not necessarily by use of
7
precision-made frame hives. Traditional beekeeping is on the wane in many parts.
So, as with Asia, the next ten years may well see many changes in this rich honeyproducing region, which has heretofore been remarkable as the world's main source of
beeswax. The fertile regions of Africa north of the Sahara are also capable of much
development, by use of efficient beekeeping methods and by migratory beekeeping
as and when roads are made. Citrus and eucalypts are two of the main honey plants
in the north, and also in South Africa, which has other prolific sources including aloes.
In the tropical miombo areas Brachystegia and Julbernardia are among the trees that
are good honey producers, and they also provide sites for hanging hives.
World summary
Table 1 gives the averages and totals for the continents whose countries are entered
separately in six tables in the book. Some of the component figures are frail, but
estimates are complete in that they have been adjusted to include notional figures for
countries without statistics of their own; there are no hidden gaps.
The world production of honey fluctuates from year to year; the present average is
assessed at rather more than 600 000 tons. This honey is harvested from 50 million
colonies of bees, by about 4y million beekeepers. The estimated human population
in the world is about 3 500 million, and the number of individual honeybees will be
about 500 times as great as this. A summary published ten years ago gave the annual
honey production as 500 000 tons, the number of colonies as 40-45 million and the
number of beekeepers as 5 million. The increase in honey production and the number
of colonies, and the slight decrease in the number of beekeepers who manage them,
are in accordance with general experience.
The final entries in Table 1 have been added to bring out what is perhaps the most
striking feature of world honey production: the high productivity of the New World
(which had no indigenous honeybees) compared with the Old World (where they
evolved). With only 18% of the hives of bees, the New World produces 40% of the
honey, exporting a substantial amount of this to the Old World. The average honey
production per colony is 27 kg for the New World as a whole, three times as much as
the Old World average of 9 kg.
The number of colonies managed by any one beekeeper may be anything between
1 to over 1 000; the average is twice as high in the New World (14, compared with 7
in the Old World). The colony density in Europe is relatively so high that it raises the
Old World average to 1 per 2 sq km, compared with 1 per 5 sq km in the New World.
Honey consumption is highest in the advanced countries, and three times as high in
the New World as in the Old. Tropical Africa holds a special position, the honey
being used for fermentation into beer.
On a world basis, the amount of honey produced per beekeeper is perhaps the most
striking figure, and it is included as Column 11 of Table 1. The highest productions
are achieved where both plenty of land and mechanized equipment are available.
The New World outstrips the Old by a factor of nearly 6. Asia and Africa (and
South and Central America) still have unexploited land, and when mechanization
can be applied effectively to beekeeping in these continents, their per capita production
could rise steeply. It is less likely to do so in Europe, where shortage of land (and
bee forage) is more likely to be the limiting factor.
The evidence shows why honey is a world industry, and it points to the establishment of honey as a connoisseur's food, although there are still some regions of the
8
world where it is one of the subsistence foods. There is at present a world shortage
of honey, and part of the increasing demand is from young people interested in
"natural" foods. Honey straight from the comb comes near to this ideal; the more
extensively honey is processed—especially by heat treatment—the less "natural" it
becomes. So we are now seeing a move away from the bulk blending and processing
which has been so successful in establishing a stable honey trade in the past decades.
Many customers are willing to pay more for honeys of specific types, with their own
special flavours and aromas, than for a standardized product.